Facebook Inc shares fizzled on their first day of trade on the Nasdaq, erasing early gains of as much as 18 percent to trade close to their initial public offering price.
The stock opened 11 percent higher and rose to $45 before rapidly heading south in frenzied trade, touching its initial public offering price of $38. The No. 1 online social network raised as much as $18.4 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history.
After a delay in the opening print that drove up anxiety levels among traders and onlookers outside the Nasdaq, the company’s closely watched stock began trading at $42.05, compared with an IPO price of $38.
To rapturous applause from employees, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg — flanked by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld — rang the bell to kick off trading at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time.
The 28-year-old billionaire founder hugged and high-fived Sandberg and other employees in celebration after he pressed the remote button.
READ MORE: Facebook fizzles in debut, shares skirt IPO price
Photo of the Day: May 16, 2012
The Role of Prince Charming
Alec Baldwin carries fiancee Hilaria Thomas up stairs at the red carpet at Cannes.
Exclusive for TIME from NASA:
The view of New York from the International Space Station evolved today, as the new World Trade tower became the tallest building in the city. See more here.
Chicago #2767 by Jörn Vanhöfen. From his series “Aftermath.”
Khedi Konchieva, 15, goes on a date with her boyfriend in the village of Serzhen-Yurt. A couple on a date in Chechnya must meet in public and sit a few feet apart. Any form of intimate contact is forbidden; some young woman who have sex before marriage risk death at the hands of their family.
Chechen authorities are the unseen presence in Diana Markosian’s photographs of girls growing up in Chechnya. See more here.
Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj has won the Reuters Photo of the Year award for this image captured in North Korea in 2011.
“After days of excitement and lots of rare pictures in the provinces, I came back to Pyongyang without big plans for shooting in the capital. All I wanted were some moody general views of the city,” Sagolj wrote. “This is probably the easiest big picture I shot for a long time - it was taken from the window of my hotel room in Pyongyang early morning, just before the sunrise. I knew that portrait was there and I insisted with our hosts to get a room on a very high floor facing that direction. So, all I had to do is to wake up early in the morning, make a coffee, light a cigarette and make sure I exposed well. The scene has this eerie look for maybe 5 to 10 minutes, then the revolutionary songs and propaganda speeches from loudspeakers wake the city up.”
The photo shows a picture of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung decorating a building in the capital of Pyongyang on October 5, 2011.
(via soupsoup)
Ananda Marchildon, a dutch model who was fired for being “too fat” (she’s three quarters of an inch wider than her modeling agency would allow), invited us along on a photo shoot to prove them wrong. Girl, you are not fat.
This awesome photograph by Nathaniel S. Butler (NBAE via Getty Images) was the cover of TIME’s Asia edition this week. See more here.
(via sportsnetny)
Meet the Naval ship that will be named for former US Representative Gabrielle Giffords [source: US Navy]
The international jury of the 55th annual World Press Photo Contest announced Friday that it had selected a picture by Samuel Aranda as the World Press Photo of the Year 2011.
There’s a word for that particular seat that Mitt Romney is riding on, right? What’s it called again?
[Getty Images / h/t @shortformblog]
Mitt Romney’s “Dukakis moment?”
(via shortformblog)
Activists of the Ukrainian feminist nudity group FEMEN clash with Swiss police during a protest at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (Jean-Christophe Bott)
CUTE OVERLOAD. A zookeeper in China attends to a 2-week-old female polar bear cub born at an aquarium in Yantai. For more remarkable photos from today’s Daily Planet, click.
Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images
life:
Happy Birthday daddy-to-be Jay-Z!
(see photos: Jay-Z and Beyonce: Hip Hop Royalty)
